Good News in Arts Education

Dr. Michael A. Grego received the 2019 Florida Music Education Association’s Superintendent of the Year Award during the FMEA Professional Development Conference at the Tampa Bay Convention Center in January 2019.

The award is presented to the Florida school district superintendent who is not a professional music educator but has displayed ardent support of the district’s school music programs. This award recognizes leadership, excellence in encouragement and promotion of music education in Florida schools.

At the Awards Breakfast, FMEA also recognized Katherine Reynard of John M. Sexton Elementary School with the 2019 Music Education Service Award.

This award is given to music educators who have been active in music education for 25 years or more. Reynard has been a music educator for 31 years.

Thurgood Marshall Fundamental and Clearwater Fundamental middle schools received the Music Enrollment Award for demonstrating high enrollment in music courses.

Pinellas County Schools 2017-18 high school graduation rate rose 3.1 percentage points to 86 percent, representing the highest graduation rate in district history.

The graduation rate among African American students increased a landmark 6.9 percentage points to 76.2 percent. The efforts of the district’s comprehensive Bridging the Gap plan are significant and represent a focused commitment to accelerate the African American graduation rate, resulting in a 19.8 percentage point increase since 2012-13.

Pinellas County Schools has eliminated the graduation gap between Hispanic and non-Hispanic students. In the past year, the graduation rate among Hispanic students rose 3.7 percentage points to 85 percent, which matches the state.

Since 2012-13, the Pinellas graduation rate for Hispanic students has increased 22.4 percentage points.